The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual conference was held in Miami, Florida this year. Several members of the Center not only attended but presented their research both virtually and in person. The theme for this year was the Power of Protest which aligns with several research projects of the Center, particularly our focus on youth climate activism. We spoke with Darren Rabinowitz and Christina Torres about their experience presenting at CIES.
Darren presented on a panel entitled: Politics and Practice of Climate Change Education. He shared findings from dissertation research, which looks at environmental rights in national constitutions and their potential impact on students' environmental learning outcomes. In his presentation he placed a World Systems Theory framework to understand the intersection of global inequality and how a country’s placement within the capitalist world system orients the country toward enshrining environmental protections within their national constitutions. Darren mentioned that at this CIES, presenters shared new climate education national level data, which includes presence of climate change education curricula and a longitudinal perspective of climate change learning over time. He is excited to include this new data in his models to better understand the diffusion of environmental rights and their effects on education policy decisions and environmental and climate learning outcomes.
Christina Torres presented on the same panel as Darren. Christina zoomed in on the case of New York City teachers and their perceptions of student interest in climate change education. She finds that teachers perceive students of color to be less interested in learning about climate change than white students. Chris shared that her biggest takeaway from the conference was hearing from climate activist and JD/PhD student, Delaney Reynolds. Delaney founded the Sink or Swim project which is designed to educate, inform and engage the generations, young people alive today and those who are about to be born, about the effects of sea level rise due to climate change. Chris is looking forward to including youth climate activists voices in academic spaces such as future CIES conferences.
Overall, Center members were excited to hear from the wide range of researchers who focus on the topics of climate change, environmentalism and education. Stay tuned for updates from our upcoming presentations at the American Education Research Association conference in Philadelphia!